LORD, you have assigned me my portion and my cup; you have made my lot secure. The boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places; surely I have a delightful inheritance. Psalm 16:5,6

Saturday, June 04, 2011

Stay-cation 2011

Can I go on my own vacation now that our family "stay-cation" is over? It was fun, memorable, full and tiring.

We stayed with my brother, Brad, and sister-in-law, Jen, and my three nephews, Josh, Ben & Ryan, over the Memorial Day weekend. To and from Grandma's house several times over the weekend, we thoroughly enjoyed our long weekend with family, including a Clemmer reunion on Sunday.

Tuesday, we drove north to Knoebel's where we battled the heat riding amusement park rides and eating icecream.

Driving home Tuesday night, we stopped for a late dinner at Chic-Fil-A, a family favorite.

From roller coasters to rolling waves, we headed to the beach on Wednesday. Sandy Point Park was our mid-week destination. Kid-sized waves, beaming sunshine, a cooling breeze, and a sparse crowd made for a relaxing day on the beach followed by Pizza Hut for dinner and icecream for dessert.

We bounced the morning away at a local bouncy place, cooled off in an air-conditioned movie theater to watch "Kung Fu Panda 2", and topped off our day with a "keeping in theme" dinner at a hibachi grill where Bella attempted to catch food thrown at her by the chef. After dinner, we enjoyed a nice stroll down the White Marsh Avenue and bought the boys summer flip flops.

Highlight of the day on Friday was strawberries. We picked at Brad's produce, enjoyed them over icecream and angel food cake later that evening.

Saturday, we scored a free kids' fishing event in Havre de Grace complete with free lunch, icecream, face painting, moon bounce, balloon art and more (even a live, wild turkey!). We hurried home to watch 2 of the kids' babysitters, Sandra and Cheri, along with 6 other friends from church graduate from high school. Ending the evening once again in a moon bounce our neighbors had rented for their girls' 4th birthday seemed quite fitting for the week of many moon bounces!

For my own mental reference for possible future vacationing:

1. Go away from home. There's something very stress relieving being away from my own home and something stress inducing about trying to vacation while remaining in my home.

2. Map out all expenses before vacation so as to not be distracted the entire time by how much we're spending and wondering what the grand total will be.

3. Plan for a babysitter near the end of vacation week so as to get some kid-free time with hubby.

4. Figure out how to factor in vegetables even on vacation. ;) Oh, did I miss my veggies.

You_ thoughts about going away- align with mine when I took vacation in Ap_il. I didn't go away thinking "people tell me all the time I have a vacation week and I'm going to just do little day t_ips and get stuff done a_ound the house"- They can do it, why couldn't i? It even sounds enjoyable! My "vacation" with good intentions of getting a bagillion things accomplished ended up being almost like wo_k. I decided afte_ that week that if I take vacation again on pu_pose, I need to go away....o_ at least not have my hopes set on being a successful self-task maste_.

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About Me

wife.mom to twin boys and a girl. home educator. inconsistent runner. writes to make sense of the chaos in her head and hopefully encourage others as she does. prone to discouragement but fights hard for joy. loves Jesus, coffee and chocolate.